Comments Policy

This page is here to preemptively address concerns about commenting on this blog or how I will moderate comments. In general, the rule shall be “behave civilly and you’re fine”. I tend to be a lenient moderator, but here are the rules in gory detail in case you want them. If you visited my previous blog, you will notice they are more lenient- this blog is more “opinion journalism” than “civil rights space” in its theme, and thus is hopefully less vulnerable to comment attack.

Currently, this blog is set to hold up your first post in moderation, basically to determine that you’re human, although highly offensive first posts might mean you don’t get approved. You may also get pulled into the spam filter if you post too many links in a single comment after you’ve already been approved- if you’ve already had a comment show up on this blog, you’re welcome to repost without links in the meantime.

This blog is a personal space. It is only public in the sense that I leave you an open invitation to read no matter who you are, and I’m willing to give you a chance at commenting. You are invited in like you would be invited into someone’s home, because I want people to read what I have to say, and because I want people to give me feedback on my thoughts and opinions. That said, it’s not an “echo chamber” either. You are welcome to have a different opinion than me if you follow the rules. In return, I’ll try to be appropriately lenient in situations where you could reasonably be expected to be unaware of what you were doing. I am not required to comment back or engage with you if I don’t feel like doing so, and usually if I stop it will be because I am busy.

This is also a safe space. That means that while I respect your right to freely speak about how much of a discriminatory wank you are, (or how you’re really not a discriminatory wank, it’s all just a misunderstanding) I expect you to go make your own blog if you want to speak about that sort of stuff. It takes less than five minutes to do and you can link away at people until your heart is content.

I welcome you to:

Share opinions broadly related to the post you’re commenting on.

Agree or disagree with a post, so long as you avoid personal attacks directed at me or other people commenting.

Share personal stories relating to something I’ve written.

Mention something I’ve left out, or something that could do with further expansion or clarification.

Use any language you like, so long as it isn’t discriminatory or a dogwhistle.1 This blog is not PG.

Ask for clarification of these rules on this page only.

I will censor you, or ban you, at my own discretion, if you do the following:

Try to post unprovoked2 personal attacks.

Try to post hate speech.

Try to out or participate in outing people who have chosen to be anonymous, whether on the internet or in the press.

Try to “sockpuppet” by posting with different or throwaway emails.

“Troll”, or make posts seeking to fool others or provoke an emotional reaction for your own amusement or any other reason.

Try to be extremely sarcastic before you’ve properly established what you really believe. Sarcasm needs to be used with great care on the web, and there are plenty of people who try to disguise hate speech as sarcasm. (Yes, I can usually tell the difference, but please introduce yourself and post some positive things before turning on the sarcasm anyway)

Try to silence, dismiss, or harass me or anyone else who is a member of a minority community.

Troll about your “concern” for majority groups, or your “concern” about the tactics of minority groups, whether you’re aware you’re trolling or not.3

Try to devalue or cast doubt on a someone’s personal experiences because they are a member of a minority group. If I trust someone to comment here, I trust them to be honest about their experience until such point as they catch themselves in a contradiction.

Try to flood a post or the whole blog with statistics, information, or emotive arguments that don’t try to establish their own factuality or justification. If you need more than one link to prove your point you should consider whether you’re even able to argue it yourself, and thus whether it’s worth commenting at all.

Try to drown out the voices of any minority group by repeatedly making the same point or trying to “shout down” their point by commenting more frequently and emotionally. By letting you disagree with me, I trust you to make your point succinctly (even though I can’t 😉 ) and leave people with different opinions and experiences room to have their voices heard.

Try to devalue people for not being “normal”.

Try to imply that accepting people who are different from yourself somehow devalues your own identity.

Dogwhistle with any of the above aims.1

1 Dogwhistling is where you try to disguise an offensive message in seemingly innocent, but metaphorically offensive, words, so that people are less likely to notice it. I’ve got some good experience at telling the difference between someone who unknowingly or accidentally dogwhistled and someone who hasn’t, so please don’t try to play games with me.

2 “Unprovoked” in this context means that you have not opened yourself to personal criticism by behaving as a hypocrite or oppressor. I don’t care who started it.

3 Showing concern for people who aren’t straight male pakeha is not the same as not showing concern for straight male pakeha. Attacking discriminatory men/pakeha/straight people is not the same as attacking all men/pakeha/straight people. I expect anyone posting comments here to understand that distinction. I also expect you to understand that nobody gets by in New Zealand without showing some concern for at least one of those three groups. But I might ignore one, two, or even all three of those groups in some of our discussions here simply because not every topic concerns them directly.